Please help ID Seahorse Species

[James87]

Hello. My Dad recently got a pair of CB seahorses from the LFS but didn't find out what species they were. I took some pics but they're pretty poor hope someone can ID them. Any photography tips would be good too. Thanks in advance.

The "male"

and the "female"

 

[colby]

H. Kuda for sure.

Colby

 

[ann83]

And your male is a female. I don't know what your female is b/c it wasn't at the right angle. Males have a pouch of smoother, patternless skin that gradually connects their bellies to their tails, a female's belly meets her tail at a sharp angle - no pouch.

 

[James87]

Thanks for the replies. So these are the ones that grow to be 12"? Maybe we got two males?

 

[ann83]

I don't see a pouch on that first one, are you sure "he" has a pouch? Here is a thread showing how to tell seahorse gender http://forum.seahorse.org/index.php?showtopic=24490

 

[cmsargent]

Look at how small these seahorses are. Based on the size of the caulerpa I would guess these horses are maybe 3" long. That means they're maybe 1/3 of thier adult size and clearly still quite young. My guess would be that these guys are no more that 4 months old and maybe younger. They don't become sexually mature untill 6-8 months old. That means right now it's nearly impossible to tell what sex the horses are.

I keep seeing threads on here where people post asking what sex their immature seahorses are and everyone answers female. You can't gaurentee a horse is female until it is sexually mature, which means 8+ months old. All immature seahorses look female. Sometime you can tell males earlier becuase the early bloomers might start developing a pouch aroung 5 months but a late bloomer might not devlop his pouch until 8-9 months.

 

[colby]

True dat brotha!!

 

[ann83]

Chris is right. I wasn't considering the size of the SH when I answered, or the fact that LFS's typically sell really young SH. I was reacting to the fact that lately people have been posting their "male/female" pairs that the LFS sold them when there is no reason to believe the male is a male (pouchless), so I was pointing out that the one labelled as male, isn't showing a pouch, so at this point I wouldn't count on it being male if you were expecting to have a breeding pair down the road.

 

[cmsargent]

Hey ann,
Didn't mean to point any fingers at you. You offer a lot of good advise on here.

I just wanted to point out that I've seen alot of the young seahorse, lately the market seems to be flooded with them. Ayway just want people to consider that you can't sex them at this age and if the LFS is selling you a mating pair you may not actually be getting that.

A while back I saw a thread where a LFS employee was wondering why all the seahorse his store recieved were female. Had to chuckle...they're not getting all female horses, they're getting young seahorse that all look female.

 

[sugartooth]

Should you worry about all those bristleworms?

 

[ann83]

My LFS got in "kelloggi" this week, and I was curious so I went to take a look today. They look just like your tiny Kuda. Identified as the wrong species and can't be more than 2" long. Adorable but very frustrating.